Canada Ebola vaccine shipment to Africa stymied by logistics

Friday, September 5, 2014

Canada’s experimental Ebola vaccine was stuck in the government lab that developed it as officials puzzled over how to safely transport it, three weeks after it was offered to Africa to fight the deadly epidemic.

Ottawa said on Aug. 12 that it would donate between 800 and 1,000 doses of the vaccine to the World Health Organization for use in Africa, where more than 1,900 people have died from the disease. The vaccines are being held at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

“We are now working with the WHO to address complex regulatory, logistical and ethical issues so that the vaccine can be safely and ethically deployed as rapidly as possible,” said Health Canada spokesman Sean Upton said in a statement.